Name: Sea-kale
Ingredients: sea-kale; coarse sea salt; butter; black pepper; lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sea-kale

Ingredients

Directions

Trim off the roots and large leaves of the sea-kale.
Wash the sea-kale thoroughly in cold salted water.
Tie the sea-kale up like asparagus.
Boil salted water and add the sea-kale.
Cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
Drain the sea-kale and dress with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice.
Serve hot or on toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Kale + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together226 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Kale + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together492 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).